Fistfights Erupt at Meeting on Street Extension

Fistfights and shoving matches erupted outside a homeowners meeting in Encino on Thursday between residents on opposite sides of a street-building quarrel.

Some members of a crowd of about 300 that had gathered outside the auditorium of Lanai Road Elementary School, where City Councilman Marvin Braude was to appear, began shouting and shoving each other about 10 minutes before the meeting began.

About nine persons were involved in two separate melees over the issue of extending Reseda Boulevard southward into the Santa Monica Mountains, witnesses said.

“I was just walking in the street when I was thrown to the ground,” said Rob Glushon, president of the Encino Property Owners Assn. “Somebody grabbed me from behind and just pushed me down.” Glushon said he did not see who attacked him but that his knee was scraped and his pants leg torn.

Opponents said Glushon was jumped because he was tearing down protest signs they had erected. Glushon said the signs were illegally posted on school property.

Friends and relatives said Ben Rosenfeld, 19, of Tarzana, was taken to Tarzana Medical Center for treatment of an injured wrist after scuffling on the ground with other crowd members.

About 10 Los Angeles police officers and a police helicopter were dispatched to the scene, but there were no arrests.

Braude arrived after the fighting ended but was jostled by the crowd as he tried to make his way into the auditorium, with protesters shouting that they were being excluded from the meeting.

“I am appalled at this kind of behavior,” Braude said. “I’ve been in public life for 25 years and this is the first time I’ve been pushed.”

Police calmed the crowd but some of them banged on the doors of the school auditorium during the meeting, protesting that Encino residents were given tickets while Tarzana residents were excluded.

The meeting was organized by the Encino Property Owners Assn. and the Encino Hillside Traffic Safety Organization. Tarzana residents in a group called Friends of Caballero Canyon protested that they were being kept out.

The meeting marked the latest battle in the dispute between Tarzana and Encino homeowners over the question of whether Reseda Boulevard should be extended to connect with Mulholland Drive.

Encino groups support the extension, which they say is necessary to relieve heavy weekday traffic on Encino’s Hayvenhurst Avenue and adjoining streets as Los Angeles Basin commuters seek an alternate route to the slow-moving San Diego Freeway.

They say that if Reseda Boulevard extended to Mulholland, commuter traffic would spread onto that route.

Encino homeowners argue that residents of Tarzana--the only community on the San Fernando Valley’s southern edge that is not bisected by a cross-mountain route--are not sharing the burden of commuter traffic.

The Tarzana group protests that extending the street will encourage development.